SOLIDWORKS 2017 What’s New: Creating Transparent Section Views – #SW2017

Creating Transparent Section Views

Section views have always been a great tool to see inside your parts, or how the assemblies fit together. One thing is certain, it took some imagination as you moved the plane through your parts and assemblies visualizing what the sliced images were making. It was if you were a Doctor looking at a CT scan of images. In SOLIDWORKS 2017, Sections Views gets updated with the ability to show the selected sectioned parts as Transparent bodies.

When in Section View (View Toolbar) or View > Display > Section View. There is a new section called Transparently Section Components.

Here is where we can select which parts we want to see transparent and adjust the percentage of Transparency that we can see. We can also use the marker to toggle the selected parts to be Excluded or Included in the Transparency view.

In this example, you can see I have 3 parts selected in the include box marked, and they have a 0.64 percentage of transparency with the Cap color turned off.

If I want to use a cap color, I need to scroll up in the fly out menu to the Section Options and Toggle on the Keep Cap Color.

Your cross section will then have a distinct color. In my example, I have the default blue.

I hope this part of the What’s New series gives you a better understanding of the new features and functions of SOLIDWORKS 2017. Please check back to the CATI Blog as the CATI and MCAD Support Teams will continue to break down many of the new items in SOLIDWORKS 2017. All of these articles will be stored in the category of “SOLIDWORKS What’s New.” You can also learn more about SOLIDWORKS 2017 by clicking on the image below to register for one of CATI’s or CATI’s Design Summits.

Craig Maurer
Applications Engineer
www.cati.com